I. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication, and more specifically to techniques for filtering data packets in a wireless communication network.
II. Background
Wireless communication networks are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, packet data, broadcast, messaging, and so on. These wireless networks may support data services using various wireless data technologies.
A wireless device may be coupled to a terminal equipment and used to provide or support data services for the terminal equipment. The wireless device may be a cellular phone, a data card, a personal digital assistant (PDA), or some other device that is capable of accessing a wireless network. The terminal equipment may be a laptop computer, a PDA, or some other computing device. The terminal equipment may use the wireless device to gain access to the wireless network for data connectivity, e.g., general Internet access. For outbound data, the wireless device receives data packets from the terminal equipment and forwards these data packets toward a gateway, which is a network entity designated to handle packet data. For inbound data, the wireless device receives data packets from the gateway and forwards these data packets to the terminal equipment. The wireless device typically acts as a transparent conduit via which the terminal equipment and the gateway can exchange packet data.
The terminal equipment may generate malformed data packets, which are data packets that are defective for various reasons, as described below. These malformed data packets waste valuable radio resources to transmit and may cause deleterious effects on the network side. There is therefore a need in the art for techniques to deal with these malformed data packets.